Electric Blue
by doctorkaitlyn
Summary: While on a search for his favorite pair of braces, the Doctor finds an article of clothing that makes him further question just how much he knows about humans.   Features Eleven, Amy and Rory


If the Doctor hadn't have been the fashion-savvy individual that he was, it never would have happened. However, as he stood in front of one of the TARDIS' many mirrors, pivoting from foot to foot, he couldn't help but cluck his tongue in disapproval, shaking his head at his reflection.

"This just won't work," he muttered, balancing on his toes and leaning in so close that his nose touched the glass. His fingers tweaked the red bow tie that was securely tied to his neck before plucking at his maroon braces, wincing slightly as they snapped back onto his chest. "No, this just won't do at all." With one deft movement, he tore the braces off and threw them over his back, not overly concerned about where they landed.

Maroon and red just didn't go together, not at all. Running through his mental closet of braces however, the Doctor remembered that he had a pair of electric blue ones hidden somewhere on the TARDIS. Now those would go well with red and, since he had at least an hour before the next intergalactic adventure demanded his attention and since both Amy and Rory had disappeared to some bedroom to do whatever humans did, he decided to conduct an expedition for his electric blue braces.

Of course, the Doctor had absolutely no way of knowing that the TARDIS thought that that particular pair of braces was absolutely horrendous and they had been sequestered long ago to the library, shoved behind a stack of dictionaries, where they joined a broken coffee cup, a crumpled fez and a gaudy ring with a massive fake ruby in it.

If the TARDIS had been kind, she would have given the Doctor back his braces and put up with his lack of fashion sense. However, she was not kind and, to be honest, she rather enjoyed watching the Doctor flit from room to room, getting more and more dishevelled as his journey went on.

By the time he finished searching through a bedroom that he had forgotten about, he was starting to get genuinely distraught. His pants had slid down his hips slightly, not being used to the lack of support. His fringe had been dangling in his eyes for nearly ten minutes and he had just ignored it, tearing blankets and pillows off the dusty bed. When the room yielded no electric blue braces, he moved on, walking into a laundry room that he had also forgotten about. The Doctor had never understood why humans insisted on washing their own clothes; he had total faith in the TARDIS when it came to dealing with his clothing.

(Although if he knew that there was a spider currently chewing on his blue braces, his faith may have been shaken.)

The floor of the laundry room was covered in small mounds of clothes, streaked with dirt and grease of many different intergalactic colors and textures. The Doctor kicked through the piles like autumn leaves, sending Amy's absurd amount of skirts and tights through the air. Through the cascading fabrics, he spotted a flash of electric blue and, massive grin gracing his face, his long fingers snatched out and yanked his braces out of the air.

They weren't his braces.

The Doctor crinkled his nose up in confusion as he ran his fingers over the small piece of silk in his hands. Although there were what appeared to be little clasps dangling from thin strings at the bottom of the... thing, they certainly were _not_ his braces. Nose still crinkled, the Doctor whipped the sonic screwdriver out and ran it over the fabric quickly. When he read the results, his eyes crinkled as well.

"What in the good universe is this?" he asked out loud, replacing the screwdriver and holding the thing up with both hands at eye level. He could now see that only the sides of the... thing, which he had now determined to be some garment, were made of silk. The rest of it was made of lace that was completely see through. One eyebrow quirked, the Doctor examined the strings dangling from the bottom. The clasps were obviously meant to attach to something... but to _what?_ The Doctor ran the various options through his head. Perhaps it was meant to be some strange sort of hat that Amy had picked up on one of the various planets they had visited. Come to think of it, that would make quite a bit of sense, he figured. Amy was always talking about how she wanted some souvenirs so on the last relatively peaceful planet they'd visited, her and Rory had wandered off to find something in the market.

The Doctor nodded his head once, smiling with relief. Of course. It was a strange sort of hat. Made perfect sense to him, although he couldn't imagine that it was very warm-

"Doctor, why are you holding my knickers?" Spinning around, he could see Amy leaning in the doorway, hair mussed up, one eyebrow raised. It took the Doctor a few moments to register what Amy had said but as soon as the meaning of the word _knickers_ resonated in his mind, he made a strange kind of squeal-whimper and tossed the knickers directly at Amy's face. His face was a rather marvellous shade of pink.

"Thought they were my braces," he said as casually as he could, "and then I thought they were a hat. But yes, I suppose, it makes much more sense that they would be your, erm, knickers."

(The Doctor actually thought that a hat made much more sense. He couldn't figure out for the life of him why knickers would have clasps.)

"Anyways, I suspect that we're going to get called quite soon so I'll go prepare the TARDIS... yes, right." Trying to avoid Amy's highly amused gaze, he slipped out the door and back into the torn apart bedroom, where Rory was lounging on the bare bed, face slightly gleaming from sweat.

"You alright Doctor?" he asked, raising one eyebrow as well, a practice he had acquired from his wife.

"Yes, perfectly fine," the Doctor hurriedly said, already halfway out the door. "Absolutely not confused in any way, shape or form." The blood that had pooled in his face began to return to its normal position as he trekked to the main control room, still trying to run the logistics of the knickers through his mind. He wasn't used to not understanding something and it quite bothered him that he knew more about quantum mechanics than he did about the strange practices of humans.

When he reached the control room, he discovered the same pair of maroon braces that he had discarded earlier, draped over one of the many levers that he still had not discovered a purpose for. Sighing, he picked them up and glared at the console.

"But electric blue would go much better with red," he insisted, only to receive a rather angry sounding beep in response. Groaning again, he gingerly snapped the braces on, glaring at the console the entire time.

In the library, the Doctor's electric blue braces were almost completely devoured.


End file.
